Zombies take over Universal

Sept. 19, 2013

Updated Sept. 20, 2013 3:14 p.m.

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Greg Nicotero, executive producer and director of special effects make-up for AMC's "The Walking Dead" was part of the creative team that recreated the set of the prison or the West Georgia Correctional Facility for the Halloween Horror Nights 2013 maze “The Walking Dead: No Safe Haven" at Universal Studios Hollywood. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Greg Nicotero, left, executive producer and director of special effects make-up for AMC's "The Walking Dead" and John Murdy, creative director at Universal Studios are show on the recreated set of the West Georgia Correctional Facility from "The Walking Dead." The prison set will part of the “The Walking Dead: No Safe Haven" maze at Halloween Horror Nights 2013 at Universal Studios. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Greg Nicotero, left, executive producer and director of special effects make-up for AMC's "The Walking Dead" and John Murdy, creative director at Universal Studios discuss the layout of the set for the “The Walking Dead: No Safe Haven" maze at Universal Studios Hollywood. Nicotero and Murdy are shown in the recreated set of the prison. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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John Murdy, creative director at Universal Studios, left, and Greg Nicotero, executive producer and director of special effects make-up for AMC's "The Walking Dead" chat on the set of the helicopter crash recreated for Halloween Horror Nights 2013 maze, “The Walking Dead: No Safe Haven" at Universal Studios Hollywood. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Greg Nicotero, executive producer and director of special effects make-up for AMC's "The Walking Dead" was part of the creative team that recreated the set of the prison or the West Georgia Correctional Facility for the Halloween Horror Nights 2013 maze “The Walking Dead: No Safe Haven" at Universal Studios Hollywood. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

For the first time, those who brave the annual Universal Studios Hollywood Halloween Horror Nights will be allowed to experience the world famous back lot soundstages and sets that have been used in countless classic and current feature films and television shows. Be forewarned, however, pausing to gawk too long may result in one of the hundreds of hungry zombies – straight out of AMC’s hit TV show “The Walking Dead” – turning you into a delicious snack.

Horror Nights guests have had the unique experience of being able to step off the Terror Tram and walk through iconic sets like the legendary Bates Motel and Bates home from Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller, “Psycho,” and the plane crash site from Steven Spielberg’s 2005 “War of the Worlds” remake. This year, Halloween Horror Nights creative director John Murdy is bringing patrons up-close-and-personal to Universal’s history as two featured mazes, “The Walking Dead: No Save Haven” and “Black Sabbath: 13 3D,” are both be tucked away in the back lot.

“That’s the real ‘Psycho’ house up there on the hill,” he says during an interview on the back lot earlier this month. He’s preparing for the main event, which opens Friday and runs on 21 select nights through Nov. 2. “I remember seeing it from the tram for the first time as a kid. I still can’t walk around this lot and not be constantly reminded of the heritage – particularly in the genre of horror – that this studio has had since opening in 1915.”

Though each year HHN presents a variety of chilling experiences, this year’s round up of attractions includes: “Evil Dead: Book of the Dead,” which is inspired by the recent reboot of the 1981 Sam Raimi cult-classic and “Insidious: Into the Further,” based on the 2010 horror flick, as well as the hit sequel, “Insidious: Chapter 2,” which debuted in theaters on Sept. 13 and was easily last weekend’s top attraction at the box office. “El Cucuy: The Boogeyman,” the story of the shape-shifting, razor toothed monster, will be narrated throughout the maze by actor Danny Trejo (“Machete,” “Sons of Anarchy“).

The on-site and year round haunted house will host “Universal Monsters Remix: Resurrection” and, as it did with the music of original shock rocker Alice Cooper and metal-god-turned-horror-director Rob Zombie in previous years, Halloween Horror Nights will feature the heavy hits of Black Sabbath in a special 3D maze. Guests will be fully immersed in a sinister landscape that coincides with the sounds of famous Sabbath cuts like “Paranoid,” “War Pigs” and “Iron Man.”

Still, the biggest attraction is “The Walking Dead.”

INFECTING THE MASSES

“I should explain … ‘Walking Dead’ is everywhere,” Murdy says as he details the actual maze, which is based on the third season of the show. Last year, “The Walking Dead: Dead Inside” explored the debut run of the TV horror-drama.

This time, HNN has taken it to the extreme. The Terror Tram will once again be invaded by walkers, as the undead are referred to by the survivors on the program, and a scare zone, located just outside of the maze, will also be crawling with rotting, flesh-eating walkers. Murdy worked closely with “The Walking Dead” executive producer and famed special effects makeup artist Greg Nicotero to get even the tiniest of details right for the über fan – from the realistic set-up of Cell Block C and the darkness looming in the seemingly safe streets of Woodbury, to the crashed rescue helicopter and the use of the actual prosthetic walker mask molds, direct from the TV show for the actors lurking on the back lot.

“It’s giving people that go through the maze an experience that’s as close as you can get to being on set,” Nicotero says. “They’re recreating it as authentically as possible and fans of this material … they will seek out the opportunity to recreate or relive that experience and here you get to do that 1,000 fold.”

After their first time in the maze last October, Nicotero says the cast, including Andrew Lincoln (Sheriff Rick Grimes), Steven Yeun (Glenn Rhee), Chandler Rigs (Carl Grimes), Norman Reedus (Daryl Dixon), Lauren Cohan (Maggie Greene) and Sarah Callies (Lori Grimes), have all asked him for spoilers on this year’s attraction.

“They asked me, ‘What is it like!’ and I said ‘I’m not telling you anything!’” he says with an evil laugh. “They spend all of this time scaring other people, now it’s their turn.”

On top of the hundreds of walkers roaming the mazes, guests will also see some actors dressed as familiar survivor characters from the show. Nicotero says he thinks it’s a great way to keep alive the spirit of some of the people the show has killed off in the past three seasons.

“Once you’re in our family, you’re really always there,” he says. “I flew to New York with my family and had dinner with Jeff DeMunn (Dale Horyath) and when he walked in to the restaurant I was like ‘Oh my God! You’re still alive!’ You just get so caught up in it. In our little conference room we have a wall called the ‘Grateful Dead’ and it’s a photo of every actor that we’ve killed. It’s sad because you’ll walk in and there can be four new photos up there in one day. It’s like a memorial and you can go back through Emma Bell (Amy) in season one and you trickle through to the end with Laurie Holden (Andrea) and you just go ‘Oh man, there are a lot of faces up there.’”

Strolling through the maze, which was still under construction during our interview, Nicotero and Murdy describe some of the scenes including the hard-to-kill walkers sporting riot gear, where the “bloated zombie” that dined on Lori Grimes will be propped up and the various smells that will be piped into different rooms to fully complete the experience.

“In the laundry room it will smell like fresh laundry and, of course, it will also smell like dead body,” Murdy adds. As it’s asked what scent exactly smells like “dead body,” he laughs and informs our crew, “There’s a company that makes a lot of scents … and they make us some nasty-smelling ones.”

As we survive the walk-thru and pop out unharmed, Nicotero quips, “Then you come out here and you fight Michael Rooker (Merle Dixon on “The Walking Dead”) and even with one arm, he’ll still beat (you).”

THE ZOMBIE EXPERIENCE

Long before “The Walking Dead,” Nicotero had an obsession with zombies. His first exposure to the undead was a late Saturday night in seventh grade when he stayed up to watch “Night of the Living Dead” uncut on television. The 50-year-old Pittsburgh native’s first real special effects makeup job was on the set of George A. Romero’s “Day of the Dead” in 1985, where he worked under the close supervision of famed special effects artist Tom Savini (“Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2,” “Friday the 13th,” “Creepshow”).

“I have fond memories of that,” he says, noting two of his favorite movies, “Jaws” and “Dawn of the Dead.” “Clearly there is a theme there – of being eaten alive. (With zombies) there’s also that whole body snatchers aspect of it, where it’s someone you know and someone you love and they’re gone and just a shell of them is left and their intent is now to devour you. That to me is terrifying. Zombies have always just fascinated me.”

Murdy, who first saw the movie “Frankenstein” at the tender age of 4, says his first zombie flick was “Dawn of the Dead.”

“It really terrified me,” he admits with a nervous laugh. “In the old movies, zombies were very slow and in some ways you think, ‘Oh, I can just run away from them.’ But I think it’s the whole strength in numbers thing and the idea of eating someone alive – well, that’s just so horrific.”

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